3D technology: get a download of this

Detail of the 3D laser-constructed dress created for Dita Von Teese.
AFR

by
Anna McCooe

Can’t find the perfect dress, one that hugs in all the right places? Or the perfect house? Ultimate burger? Human organ? Just give it a moment, we’ll print one for you. 3D printing is already very real and very plausible. Just ask New York-based architect and researcher
Francis Bitonti
. In collaboration with Michael Schmidt Studios, he 3D-printed the long, black mesh dress that burlesque monarch
Dita Von Teese
wore to New York’s Ace hotel in March.

Each of the components was designed using Shapeways software to exactly fit Dita’s famous curves. Fine sheets of powdered nylon underwent selective laser sintering (SLS) and were built layer-upon-layer into a 3D form.

“We printed the dress in 12 pieces and it came out of the machine fully articulated and moveable," Bitonti toldLuxury magazine. “Then those pieces were dyed, crystalled and assembled into the dress," he continued as if talking about working with silk or cashmere.

Of course, Von Teese’s gown is insanely avant-garde but the method translates. Nike has used 3D printing to manufacture lightweight football studs and London designer
Ron Arad
has just utilised the process to create monolithic glasses for eyewear brand PQ. The technology will come into its own if, or when, the 3D printer is a household item.

“Living in a world where someone can print off a garment and walk out the door isn’t very far away," Bitonti says.

Renny Ramakers
of Dutch company
Droog Design
believes additive manufacturing (as it is also known) allows consumers to customise pieces to their exact wants and needs.

“It happens so often that you find the ultimate piece of furniture but the size does not meet your needs or the colour does not fit," she says.

The technology could take high design to the mainstream. “Sending blueprints instead of products across the world saves a lot of transport," Ramakers says. “And, because there are fewer middle men in the system, it can make high-end design affordable for a wider range of people. They can even make the products themselves, if they wish."

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This may just mean the end of one-size-fits-all design. Architect and academic
Roland Snooks
says we are on the verge of a new era of one-offs. Snooks is partner at Melbourne architecture practice
Kokkugia and a lecturer at RMIT’s school of architecture and design. “We are in the midst of a conceptual shift from mass standardisation to mass customisation," he says.

The technology already exists for 3D printers to go mainstream. Snooks explains: “In the past 12 months there has been a significant rise in 3D printers on the market. You can get a consumer-level 3D printer, that prints in plastic, for sub-$2000. Professional 3D printers, ranging in price from $20,000 up to several hundred thousand dollars, can print in a range of materials, such as plastics, resins, plaster and ceramic. RMIT has additive manufacturing equipment including printers that can process titanium powder."

The roadblock is cost of production. “It stills takes several hundred dollars to print something that could fit into a shoebox," Snooks says.

There are also intellectual property issues to smooth out as more design goes digital and there are implications at each level of the supply chain for building, manufacturing and distribution industries.

Architects scaling up

In architecture, the technology is already widely used for model making. “Architects are scaling up; printing components of buildings or even whole buildings," Snooks says.

The race is on to fabricate the first 3D-printed house. University of Southern California’s Centre for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies has a system called “contour crafting" that uses a huge moveable gantry to layer concrete to build up whole structures. Meanwhile D-Shape in Italy lays down sand and a binding agent to create architectural elements and is projected to complete their first entirely 3D-printed house (pictured) by mid-2014.

How does printed architecture appear? Snooks projects greater interest in detailed ornamentation. “Elaborate ornamentation has been stripped out of architecture in part due to mass standardisation. Computational design and new robotic construction techniques are opening up the possibility of new forms and a renewed interest in ornamentation."

Soon we will all be able to print out spare parts for a washing machine at home or email the program to the local print bureau and pick it up. 3D printing luminaries Freedom Of Creation are already printing in chocolate and working on a plan to produced printed pasta, breakfast cereal and burgers. Scientists at Cornell University and Oxford University have even found ways to print artificial human tissue that could be used to repair damaged nerves or muscles or possibly, one day, replace an organ.

Snooks says there’s no end in sight. “As soon as you radically change a method of production, it opens up a whole new series of possibilities." Create. Save. Print.